


<tortured sobbing>

by blazingsnark



Series: Mephala's Vestige [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Gen, and the vestige's trauma kind of gets in the way of being there for Fenn, in which lyris is the pov character and is torn between friend and mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingsnark/pseuds/blazingsnark
Summary: Five years ago, Lyris Titanborn, fresh from a failed mission, chose to brave the dungeons of Coldharbour.Five years ago, Akhvis Nedathi, her soul freshly ripped from her, was forcibly dragged into the same dungeons.The Planemeld is now past, in no small part thanks to them.  But, five years later, hearing a new friend be tortured by a minion of Molag Bal is... trying.
Series: Mephala's Vestige [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798246
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	

For as long as Lyris Titanborn had known the Vestige, one fact had been pretty clear: she was  _ not  _ a good fighter. When Lyris asked about it - in Coldharbour, on the way to retrieving her axe, her mind a blur of pain and cold and confusion - the Dunmer woman had just laughed a little awkwardly.

“Some Morag Tong kill in the open,” she had said in that unmistakably harsh Dunmeris accent of hers, looking up at Lyris. “I was never one of them. Come on, I think we’re close. Do you need another invisibility potion?”

It was fine, really. Each of the Five Companions had their own specialty, and Lyris’ was hitting things with her axe, just as Sai’s was being the best man Lyris had ever known and the Vestige’s was, apparently, getting around Coldharbour unseen and being soulless. The former talent stayed even after the soullessness was…  _ rectified _ .

However.

_ However _ .

“Unseen” wasn’t really the mandate five years later, beneath Western Skyrim, as Akhvis the no-longer Vestige and Lyris Titanborn spoke with Edjar. For a werewolf - and a pack leader at that - Edjar’s posture was distinctly nervous, arms crossed, staring Akhvis down with a ferocity completely unwarranted by her small stature.

There was a reason for that nervousness. And there was a reason not even Akhvis argued for being unseen on this mission, bolting right alongside Lyris at a dead noisy run into the ancient Dwemer keep.

“You’re animated about this,” Lyris huffed in between deep breaths as they moved Dwemer puzzle cubes, Akhvis directing and Lyris providing the sheer solid muscle needed to heft the things. Akhvis’ eyes, when she glanced up from the shitty notes some vampire had left, were wide with panic.

“Remember when you exchanged yourself for Varen?”

Lyris’ shudder at the memory nearly threw off the track of the block. Akhvis stepped in to help, her slim hands steadying the puzzle bit into place.

“They didn’t want anything from you. The Gray Host, they’ll  _ want _ something from Fenn.”

The golden-eyed cat Moon yowled from across the courtyard. Akhvis spared a glance toward her constant kitty companion.

“Let’s try the door.”

It was unlocked, as both women soon found, and once again, Lyris half-expected Akhvis to crouch and blend into the shadows. Instead, Akhvis strode right alongside her, even loosening the volcanic glass sword she wore in its sheath at her side. Moon trotted ahead of them both.

It was the cat who first warned them of vampires ahead - scampering back, tapping thrice at Akhvis’ ankle. The soft words of speech came to them from very close down the hall. It was hard to tell in these Dwemer ruins, but if Lyris had to guess, it was just around the corner.

She unslung her axe from her back. Akhvis hesitated, but she finally did what Lyris expected her to do - slipped into a crouch, peering around the corner.

“One’s got his back to me,” she muttered. “I’ll get him, you get the other two.”

Lyris hummed her affirmation. Akhvis slipped forward. Lyris stepped to the corner, peering around - watching the assassin quickly, silently move across the floor, right up until the moment when she rose from the shadows and her knife found its way into her target’s back.

The two other vampires in the room whirled. A line of red blood lashed from one’s hand around Akhvis. The Vestige stiffened and struggled against the grip with a strangled sound. Lyris charged to intercept them.

Fighting was, at least, simple enough - the flat of her axe bashed the one holding Akhvis in the air so that he dropped the spell, a whirling backhand axe strike bit into the second vampire’s chest and loosed a gush of blood (probably not his own), and a metal boot in the chest of the first vampire bought her enough time to free her axe and bring it down. The whole affair took less than fifteen seconds, but Lyris’ chest still felt tight in a way that it normally didn’t after battle. Killing bloodsuckers reminded her of Fenn.  _ These _ bloodsuckers were holding Fenn captive…

“Lyris,” said Akhvis, low and soft, above the rapid shuffling of paper. “They’re enhancing the harrowstorms here.”

“So thats why Fenn was interested.” Given their height difference, it wasn’t hard to read over Akhvis’ head as Lyris came up behind her. “Every tactic has a countermeasure. If we bring these notes to someone who can-”

Whatever she’d been about to say was driven out of her mind. An agonized scream resonated through the Dwemer piping, made deeper by the brass, not of a voice Lyris had ever heard screaming before, but a voice she  _ knew _ . A quick glance down at Akhvis’ ashen face told her the Vestige knew it as well.

Moon yelped and scrambled up Akhvis’ body, digging tiny claws into her jaw. Akhvis jolted into motion.

“That’s Fenn,” Lyris said thickly. Akhvis steadied Moon on her shoulder and nodded.

“We have to hurry.”

She swept a bottle of the vampires’ test fluid into her bag, and they both turned and ran. Lyris would normally slow to let Akhvis keep up, but that scream… 

More voices echoed through the metal walls. Lyris could barely hear over the sound of her pounding heart and her running footsteps - she hoped Akhvis was cool enough to listen - but a few words filtered through. “ _ It _ .” “ _ A weaker breed. _ ” They were talking about  _ Fenn _ that way.

Another door blocked them; Lyris didn’t slow. A shoulder ram dented the door, and then, ignoring the dull ache in her shoulder as Akhvis caught up, she wedged her axe between the door halves and twisted them open. Dwemer mechanisms be damned along with secrecy. If they didn’t get to Fenn soon enough, and those two voices got to him-

A sick, choking smell hit her like a kennel full of wet dogs. She coughed and shook her head.

“Poison,” Akhvis recognized, stepping up beside her. Moon was now on her shoulders, his golden eyes big in his furry little face. “That smell.”

“From the sprayers,” Lyris filled in, looking across to the red mist filtering down. “We’ll never get across this chamber with them on.”

She immediately started looking for the source, any sort of tank or valve or something to shut off. Akhvis darted up to the front of the balcony and looked down.

“Hold on.”

It was an agonizing few minutes for Lyris, hefting her axe, watching Akhvis run back and forth between valves while consulting a little book of notes she’d found on the main balcony, and  _ listening _ . She only realized she was listening so hard a few moments in. Only when another choked scream came did she realize what she’d been listening  _ for _ , and it drove another crack between her ribs.

_ Damn it, Titanborn, get a grip _ .

The sprayers’ sound lessened. Lyris hurried up to stand by Akhvis, just in time to see-

“Shor’s bones, that stone husk is moving!” She released one hand from her axe and settled it on Akhvis’ shoulder. “You get past it, I’ll hold it off.”

The Dunmer woman shook her head, lips tight. “It’ll take too long. I’ll back you up,” she said, and ducked out from under Lyris’ hand, backing up a few steps.

Lyris considered arguing. But Akhvis was right - if it would buy them a few precious seconds, it was worth it. She turned and ran down the steps to the lower level, preparing what she hoped would be a wrecking blow. She hoped  _ not _ to hear another scream.

The husk turned to face her. It was met with her axe between two stones of its body.

The fight was short, but brutal, the husk emitting some sort of poison. Things would have dragged on longer if not for Akhvis, who, the moment the husk was turned toward the balcony, launched herself from the balcony rail and slammed bodily into the husk, dagger-first. The embedded earthware of its face shattered and cracked. Akhvis landed, rolled, stood - teeth bared - and stepped forward with Lyris, as Lyris dealt the final blow.

“You picked up some skills.”

The husk slumped to the ground. Moon scampered up onto it and yowled. Akhvis looked up at Lyris, not sheathing her knife.

“Somewhere along the line. This way, I think.”

She was the one to start running, but Lyris was close on her heels, darting through a row of (thankfully inert) husks identical to the one they’d just killed. Another door met with the same brutal end by Lyris’ axe. Akhvis stepped through first.

A Dwemer grate overlaid steaming, sizzling coals. It would have been impossible to be silent, and Akhvis didn’t even try, darting across it without any of her usual care and caution. Lyris’ metal boots just added to the din.

Neither of them were able to drown out Fennorian’s hoarse, sob-edged words.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

A vampire in a row of tortured bodies turned. Lyris met her with half a meter of axe in the chest.

“The Ashen Lord crafted the plan,” said a low, smooth voice half-recognized from the corridor before. Lyris could hear it over her pounding heart. They must be getting closer. Akhvis threw a dagger, and then flashed into the shadows, another vampire dying to her blade. “I am simply the architect of his tools.”

Lyris caught up with Akhvis. They sprinted.

“Now, feel free to scream, as I…”

Akhvis stumbled, Moon yowling his concern. The pounding of rage in Lyris' ears once again drowned out the man's voice. She was almost glad for the two vampires that surged to meet her from the right, just so she could cut them down in a whirl of blood and steel.

“Akh!”

“I’m here- I’m alright,” the woman panted, catching up to her. Her lips were pale, like all the blood had drained from her face beneath that gray skin. Lyris automatically looked for a bite and found none - just the little pin prick marks of Moon’s claws against her jaw. “Come on.”

“We have what we need,” cut in a louder, harsher voice from the metal pipes, and  _ damn it _ , why did Dwemer ruins have such good acoustics? “In his final moments-”

Lyris was off and sprinting, Akhvis right beside her, before she even bothered to hear the words after that.  _ Final moments _ . Let them not be too late, let them not be too late, not again, not this time-

She kicked aside two Dwemer spiders that tried to stop them and forced the door. She barely caught the flicker of familiar movement from the corner of her eye as Akhvis threw back a potion like a shot, right before the mer faded from view. Invisibility. Fine.

Lyris stepped through the ruined door and immediately cleared the way for her invisible partner to follow. And then, as she caught sight of what was going on, her axe fell limp with dread.

A vampire’s limp form hung suspended in the air, surrounded by red energy contorting him, spasming through him, its crackle not even half-covering his quiet, tortured sobbing. The other two vampires, smooth-voice and harsh-voice, stood casually conversing.

“The machine will finish him momentarily, my Lord.”

“Finish your work here, Tzingalis, and then join me in the keep. You must bear witness when we make our final move.”

Lyris didn’t intend to let them finish. She rushed forward with a battle yell, fully intending to leap onto the platform and kill at least  _ one _ vampire lord before they flew away. But harsh-voice - Tzingalis? - raised one almost lazy hand, and Lyris froze.

Literally.

Froze.

She tried to move, she tried to shout a warning, but she couldn’t move a muscle. Everything was dead silent - no rush of rage, no pounding of her heart.

Oh, oh, Kyne’s mercy. Her  _ blood _ . Why did everything with vampires always come back to blood?

Her chest contracted without a heartbeat. Tzingalis continued.

“Of course, Rada al-Saran. I am eager to see the power of our ultimate harrowstorm - after I get this new test subject settled.” He turned his head and  _ smiled _ at Lyris. “This one is about spent.”

Fennorian sobbed.

Rada al-Saran chuckled and vanished into black mist, which then blew inward, an invisible force piercing through it and slamming Tzingalis in the chest. He staggered backward with a hiss. Lyris got one precious heartbeat before everything froze in her veins again, just enough to see a no-longer-invisible Akhvis standing between Fennorian and Tzingalis, drawing her glass sword.

Tzingalis snarled - animalistic - and lunged. Akhvis met him with crossed blades.

The ex-Vestige’s fighting style was like nothing Lyris could place - certainly not as strong in stance as a Nord, nowhere near the organized movements of the few Dark Elves she’d seen fight, perhaps closest to Sai Sahan’s Way of the Sword, but still not nearly so disciplined. Akhvis slipped between Tzingalis’ strikes like a shadow, turning him away from Fennorian before ever striking back - and when she did, it was flashy and swift, hard to tell in the dim light which blade she was using or where the next strike would even come from. Lyris could have sworn a few times she saw dark red knives poking from between gray fingers.

Akhvis was normally so careful.

There was nothing careful about this.

Tzingalis’ sounds became more guttural, more animal, more desperate. He leapt for Akhvis. She danced backward, let him land hard, and then swept forward, driving her dagger home beneath his ribs and angling upward.

Lyris could move again. She sagged to the balcony railing with a rush of blood in her ears and a giant gasp of breath, then vaulted over the rail on shaky muscles - nearly stumbled - and stepped over to Fennorian’s prison, glancing down at the lever. It was marked with a scale - one to ten. She dragged it all the way down below one.

Akhvis stepped close to the dying exarch and muttered something, cold and hard and low, then cut his throat with the edge of her sword. The stink of dead vampire blood filled Lyris’ nostrils.

Fennorian collapsed to the metal floor with a hard  _ thud.  _ His sobbing didn’t abate. He attempted to drag himself up, but failed, looking as shaky as Lyris felt.

“It’s- it’s too late for me,” he managed. “Go… warn Solitude.”

Akhvis stepped over Tzingalis’ dead body and approached. Fennorian’s head snapped up, pupils dilated. He shuddered. One trembling hand came up to cover his nose and mouth.

“Stay away!”

Akhvis’ brow furrowed as she stopped. She glanced at Lyris - as confused as anyone - and then down at herself, covered in both the Exarch’s blood and her own.

“Oh,” she realized, one hand coming up to cover the little pinpricks of blood where Moon had scratched her back in the first room. “Vampire. I’m sorry, Fenn, here.”

She reached into her coat and pulled out the flask Lyris had found in Fennorian’s house in Dusktown. Stuhn’s bargain, was that only this morning? It felt like a week. Lyris caught the flask as Akhvis tossed it, and passed it to Fennorian, who clutched it like a lifeline.

“Thank you,” he breathed, then hiccuped, swallowed, tried to get himself under control. His pale face was streaked with tear marks. “I don’t trust my restraint… They talked freely while they…” He trailed off, staring at the cork of his flask.

“An ultimate harrowstorm?” Lyris remembered what Tzingalis had said while holding her immobile. Fennorian’s nod was a quick, birdlike jerk.

“Solitude.”

He popped the cork of his flask and drank, not tipping his head back, guarding his throat. Lyris knelt beside him and laid her axe on the ground. An attack on Solitude.

“We’ve got to warn Princess Svana,” she said, looking up to Akhvis. “Shit.”

“You go,” Fennorian rasped, taking the flask from his mouth. His lips were stained red. He swallowed several times, then continued. “Leave me-”

“We’re all going together.” Akhvis cut him off, her tone brooking no argument. She turned to Lyris. “There’s a way to sneak him inside the palace without many people. If you approach the walls from the bay side-”

Lyris listened closely to the instructions, mapping out the route against what she knew of Solitude’s layout. Akhvis seemed to have a much better knowledge of secret pathways and back tunnels than she did. Lyris felt some small glimmer of- gratitude, probably? that this assassin was on  _ their _ side.

“Okay?”

Lyris nodded. Akhvis nodded back, then turned to Fennorian, lips tight.

“Did he keep notes?”

It seemed a struggle for Fennorian to unclench one hand from the flask. Lyris instinctively reached a gauntleted hand for him.

“Take your time. You’ve been through a lot.”

Akhvis shut her eyes briefly. Fennorian managed to point to his right.

“He was insane,” he said, shaky, “but he was also a genius. If he kept records…”

“That type usually does.” Akhvis dipped her head. She and Fennorian met eyes. Lyris wasn’t sure what passed between them, but it made Fennorian shudder, and Akhvis let out a deep breath.

“I’ll search. Lyris… can you get him back to Solitude?”

“Of course.” Lyris helped Fennorian stand. He was light. Damn it. She could probably- no,  _ definitely _ carry him if needed, him and Akhvis both. She didn’t like that idea. Altmer should have the weight to go with their height. “I expect to see you at the Blue Palace, partner.”

Akhvis flashed a not-really-a-smile and turned away, heading the direction Fennorian had pointed. Fennorian, clutching his flask close, leaned on Lyris’ metal-covered arm.

“They did whatever they wanted,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stop them.”

Lyris freed her arm just enough to snake it around his waist, holding him up.

“C’mon, Fenn,” she muttered, glancing at Exarch Tzingalis’ dead body for only a few bitterly victorious moments before returning her attention to the shivering vampire. “We’ll help you through this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hearing all the dialogue and Fenn's screams as you run through that Dwemer ruin.... I dunno, it really got to me. Especially the subtitle where Fenn was past words, and it just said .
> 
> Some quests do a number on my emotions. This was one of 'em.


End file.
